Piezo Electric and High Voltage Absorption Cooling System

ABSTRACT

The ever increasing cost of electricity has become a main area of concern for the indoor climate control business due to the fact that conventional absorption cooling devices suffer from a very high power consumption ranging from 2 kW to tens of kilo Watts. The high power consumption of a typical absorption coolers comes from the operation of the boiler which is used to heat the Lithium Bromide (LiBr) solution, as well as the chiller pump and pipings. This paper presents a novel solution for eliminating the need for hot steam to evaporate the Lithium Bromide (LiBr) solution by incorporating piezoelectric modules to generate cold LiBr vapour in the generator tank. This further simplifies the absorption cooling mechanism by eliminating the need for a cooling tower and a heat exchanger and reduces the overall size and dimensions of the device, without a reduction in cooling power.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

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STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT

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REFERENCE TO SEQUENCE LISTING, A TABLE, OR A COMPUTER PROGRAM LISTING COMPACT DISK APPENDIX

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BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention is in the field of absorption cooling systems and relates to the area of Lithium Bromide evaporation and particularly to the cycle of pumping in absorption cooling systems and utilizing new sorbent removal technique.

2. Description of Related Art

The conventional absorption chiller cycle uses water as the refrigerant and Lithium Bromide as the absorbent [1]. A solution pump transfers the lithium bromide solution to a tube heat exchanger for preheating. A generator brings the solution to a boiling state and sends the refrigerant vapour upwards into the condenser leaving the concentrated Lithium Bromide behind. This concentrated solution liquid is sprayed over the evaporator tubes. The refrigerant vapour migrates to the absorber from the evaporator and the strong Lithium Bromide solution from the generator is sprayed over the absorber tube. The strong Lithium Bromide solution, in fact, draws the refrigerant vapour into the solution vacuuming the evaporator and creates heat, repeating the entire process.

The system described above consists of Lithium Bromide as the solution, chiller water as the refrigerant, external heat for boiling the solution, electrical pumps for transferring water to the radiators and fans and heat exchanger or cooling tower for cooling the system.

The disadvantage of the current products on the market are as follows:

1) The system has a high power consumption for heating and boiling the Lithium Bromide solution. 2) This high power consumption increases environmental pollution as the power consumption is 4 kW for creating a cooling power of 30,000 BTU. 3) From an economical point of view, there are many redundant components in traditional absorption cooling systems for the purpose of heating, cooling, and transporting fluids such as electric pumps, fans, and connection pipes which make these units heavier and more expensive. In this document a proposed solution will be presented that can eliminate most of these redundancies and significantly reduce the weight, power consumption, and operating costs of a typical absorption cooling system.

BRIEF SUMMARY

The present embodiment is a new method in absorption cooling system. This new method enables the evaporation process without consuming heat in the absorption cooling system and as result would be environmentally safer.

The embodiment of the invention sets forth a chilling cycle of an absorption cooling system which shortens the process by employing less component parts.

The main goal of the present invention is to, considerably improve the energy efficiency of typical absorption air conditioners by incorporating new methods and techniques to remove old, heavy, and energy hungry components. Mainstream absorption air conditioners have limited use cases due to their high electrical energy consumption.

As an example, during peak electrical consumption hours in the hot summer season, in which air conditioners are in operation across the city, electrical energy demand increases to an extent that could lead to regional blackouts if electricity supply is not matched. On the other hand, many families cannot afford the high cost of maintaining typical air conditioners which consume at least 2 kW of electrical power. Many organs, such as hospitals, have to dedicated a large portion of their annual budget towards electricity costs of maintaining large air conditioner systems, which results in reduction in revenues. In overall, typical air conditioners have limited use cases due to their heavy weight and large sizes, as a result of a high parts count, and high energy consumption, which is nearly 4 times more than today's more innovative air conditioners.

Typical air conditioners cannot be used in many applications due to their bulky weight and high energy consumption. For instance, there is a rapid trend in the development of electrical vehicles to replace more traditional gasoline or petrol vehicles. In these newly developed electrical cars there is a limited amount of electrical energy stored in the car's batteries. If a typical air conditioner were to be used in these vehicles, then most of the electrical energy stored in the batteries would be wasted towards cooling the interior of the car, which would directly result in a reduced operational range on a single battery charge and a less commercially competitive option for drivers.

Traditional air conditioners also contribute damaging effects to the environment by leaking dangerous gases to the atmosphere, such as CFC, HCFC, and HFCs. The invention presented in this document, eliminates these harmful environmental impacts by utilizing environmentally friendly liquids such as distilled water and lithium bromide, which are recyclable.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates the overall mechanism of the proposed invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION AND BEST MODE OF IMPLEMENTATION

This section makes frequent references to FIG. 1.

The sections of the device, as shown in FIG. 1, include a generator (1) which is a tank that contains a concentrated solution of Lithium Bromide. Above this solution there is a container with piezo electric elements oscillating at a frequency of 5 MHz that evaporate the diluted Lithium Bromide solution. All the tanks in the device are kept at 50 mmHg vacuum. After the evaporation of the Lithium Bromide solution a high voltage of approximately 10 kV, is applied to the pallets (B). This will absorb the Lithium Bromide salt and the water vapour will exit the tank (1) from the top pipe.

In this stage the pressure of tank (1) is 400 mmHg. This pressure difference between Tank (1) and tank (2) will cause the water vapour to flow towards tank (2) and into the water pump. Here, the water vapour will mix with the existing water and will be pumped towards the evaporator. The pumped water will then be sprayed onto the evaporator. The air of the room that is to be cooled is blown in the evaporator pipes with a fan. The water sprayed onto the evaporator pipes will immediately evaporate due to the low pressure of 50 mmHg (vacuum). This sudden evaporation of water will absorb the heat of the evaporator pipes and cause cooling of the air passing through the evaporator pipes. The cooled air will then be blown into the room. The excess water enters tank (C) where it will be pumped again to the evaporator.

A portion of the water that is sprayed over the evaporator pipes is evaporated due to the absorbed heat. This evaporated water is absorbed by the absorber which the concentrated solution of tank (1) is sprayed over. The absorber will absorb the evaporated water in the evaporator due to the high absorption rate of the concentrated Lithium Bromide solution and this will prevent the drop of pressure in tank (2). The sprayed Lithium Bromide solution is pumped back to tank (1) using the solution pump. The pumped solution is poured over the high voltage plates (B) which have absorbed the Lithium Bromide salts. This action will dissolve the salts on the plates (B) into the recirculating solution. It is also important to mention that the absorber consists of circular sheets with many holes which increases its surface area. This will ensure that all the evaporated water is absorbed by the Lithium Bromide solution which is sprayed over it.

This system is similar to absorption chillers with the following exceptions: In older systems, large amounts of energy is consumed (approximately 3 kW) to boil the Lithium Bromide solution. In the presented invention piezo electric elements and high voltage is used to create water vapour which consume only 400 W.

In traditional systems a cooling tower is required to cool down the boiled solution, as well as a fan for cooling the water pump. A condenser system is also required for cooling the Lithium Bromide solution. All of these components consume a lot of power and miscellaneous components such as pipes. All of these components are eliminated in the proposed new system, because the nebulizer system (i.e. the piezo electric system) creates cold water vapour from the solution in tank (1). This cold vapour will directly enter the coolant pump without high power consumption or any other piping material, hence the overall production costs will significantly decrease.

Since the ambient room air is directly passed and cooled through the evaporator pipes, unlike conventional cooling systems, chiller and chiller pumps are not required. As a result, the propose system can be connected behind windows just like vapour compression units. The proposed system also operates quietly due to the fact that it is void of a compressor.

In conventional chiller systems the gases that are generated by the decomposition of water (hydrogen and oxygen) are absorbed by a system called Purch. These absorbed gases are removed from the system by a regular maintenance services once every few months. In our proposed solution, the sparks from the high voltage plates in tank (1) will transform these gases into heat and water, and therefor removed automatically.

Another benefit of the proposed system is that the piezo electric elements instantly create cold vapour as soon as the system is turned on. This results in an instantaneous generation of cold air. Similar to vapour compression units our proposed system is called an absorption cooler. The dimensions of our device can be 80×60×40 cm and operates with a power consumption of 500 W. At this power rating it can provide the same level of coldness as a 30,000 BTU absorption chiller. The water and solution pumps are isolated magnetic pumps each of which consume 20 W of power and can easily be serviced. The entire system can be controlled with a small and inexpensive micro controller such the Atmell Atmega series micro controllers. A 30,000 BTU device will weight approximately 30 kg.

Our proposed system consumes 600% less power than conventional vapour compression units, and as a result our solution can revolutionize the air conditioning industry.

The invented absorption cooling system is capable to work with solar power due to its low power consumption requirement.

NON PATENT CITATION Reference

-   [1] Kevin D. Rafferty, “Absorption Refrigeration”, Available online:     http://geoheat.oit.edu/pdf/tp51.pdf

CLASSIFICATION U.S. Classification 165/58, 62/238.3; 62/476 International Classification F24F 1/00, F24F 2003/1635, F24F 2005/0007, H0155/024 F25B 15/04 (20130101); F25B 27/02 (20130101); F25B 41/062 (20130101); F25B 29/006 (20130101); F25B 41/04 (20130101); F25B Cooperative Classification F25B 29/00 (20060101) 

What we claim are:
 1. An absorption cooling system, comprising: a generator with piezoelectric modules operating at 5 MHz which are used to evaporate the Lithium Bromide solution, and charged metal plates up to 10 kV, thereby removing the Lithium Bromide salt and allowing the water vapour to enter the evaporator water pump.
 2. The absorption cooling system of claim 1, wherein the piezoelectric modules, oscillating at 5 MHz, evaporate the Lithium bromide solution without the need for applying heat.
 3. The absorption cooling system of claim 1, wherein the high voltage plates are used to separate the Lithium Bromide salt from the water vapour.
 4. An air conditioning system, comprising: A tank for the evaporation of diluted Lithium Bromide solution and a second tank containing the evaporator and the absorber of the system; containing multiple pipes for direct air cooling.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the air to be cooled is directly passed through the evaporator pipes causing it to lose heat; as opposed to conventional methods of water chiller systems. 